


Sleeper

by annaslastdalliance



Series: Belated Survey Thank-You Prompt-Fills [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Creepy Relationships, Gen, Lack of attention to canonical detail, Lack of authorly research, Other, Unhealthy D/s subtext
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 09:04:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1130761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annaslastdalliance/pseuds/annaslastdalliance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is difficult to pedal something without coming to believe in it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleeper

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt-fill for [floatfoot](http://floatfoot.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr, as a (belated) thank you for filling in my Sherlock fandom survey. Thank you! I hope you like it. (I've labelled it Gen + Other because it's not _really_ shippy in the sense that I'd mark it F/M, but then it's not exactly _not_ shippy, either. /facepalm)
> 
> Prompt: "Irene/Moriarty- bromance, angst, or romance, whatever you choose. " 
> 
> Mild warnings for D/s subtext of the unhealthy and vicious variety, I guess?

Irene isn’t used to being employed, at least not in the strictest sense. With clients, it’s different: she’s a specialist, not an employee; an expert invited to examine, devise, and deliver. Under Moriarty, there is none of this—under Moriarty, she is a blunt instrument. _Needle_ is the word he chooses: _needle_. Needling is something Irene can do, but slowly, and carefully, and with finesse. Moriarty says _needle_ , but what he means is _knife_. It is not, of course, that Irene _can’t_ knife; only that with Sherlock, she finds there’s more pleasure in needling.

“I’ll do this my way,” she tells Moriarty, when they first meet in person, bubbled by the bodies of King’s Cross commuters.

“No, no, no, no, _no_ ,” Moriarty corrects. “I don’t think you will. I know about _your_ ways, Miss Adler, and they’re not quite to my tastes.” Irene watches him check his watch, come a step closer. “Sherlock Holmes is _my_ prey. Do you understand that?”

“I understand.” She does. Moriarty smiles a little wider. There is something that radiates off him, at all times, but especially here, as he stands less than a foot away from her: power. He watches her watching him, and she can see him recognize and consider, playfully, all the thoughts that have crossed her mind in this instant: what he wants, how to give it to him, how to take it away. Thoughts that always cross her mind when meeting men of power; thoughts that find no answers for him.

“It’s not that I’m not _amenable_ , Miss Adler.” His tone leaves her no doubt. “It’s just that I don’t have the time right now to go through the motions, so let’s just cut to the chase, shall we?” He throws an arm around her shoulder, thumbs painfully gently at her collarbone. “You will not break me. Not with anything you can devise, or any amount of time. So please…abandon the notion. Let _me_ be your guide.”

He moves his hand, carefully, from her neck to the small of her back: a man holding onto his wife, awaiting a distant relative's arrival by train. “Otherwise, I think you’ll find your _self_ fairly breakable. Your fingers, your wrist. Your neck. Believe me, these things break. If I have to, I will split open your spine, Irene, and I won’t even get anything as pedestrian as enjoyment from it. Don’t doubt it for a moment.”  

“Your way,” Irene identifies, and she can’t remember the last time she had trouble breathing like this.

“Yes,” Moriarty smiles. He lets go of her and she goes stiff despite herself, well-practiced grace washed cold with terror. This is something she has not felt in some time. “So. Are we clear, Miss Adler?”

Irene knows he’s only repeating this for her benefit: speaking her language. Orders, agreements. Explicit, always, in more ways than one.

“Yes.”

Is this how it feels? She has a sudden urge to surrender; hungers after it in a way that is blindsiding. And so if Moriarty will turn her into a blunt instrument, a blunt instrument she will be. Irene knows the operation of this pact well enough; trusts its exchange, the safety of its imbalances. Still: the headiness of it, she does not expect, though perhaps she should: an ordinary reaction to power for a psyche so well-attuned to it. It is difficult to pedal something without coming to believe in it.

So Irene becomes an employee: takes calls, sends routine updates, and makes sure _her way_ always fits reasonably into _his way_.  She is still a specialist, in a way—Moriarty couldn’t do _this_ , touch Sherlock’s cheekbone like this, call him beautiful and _mean_ it—but she is now something bigger: beholden. She needles until she’s told to knife, and when she does, there’s some pleasure in that too, because discipline can be appreciated, and Irene is nothing if not meticulous. She starts to love Sherlock, a little, because she can read between the lines of orders, too, and she has no illusions about what Moriarty means by _knife_ and _burn_ , and he’s said both. So it’s no surprise, either, when Irene is outplayed and winds up defenceless. _This_ is the burn; _this_ , the knife: the grainy image of her head, separated from its body; and the flatness in Sherlock’s eyes when he looks at it. A long play or plan B, it matters little: the end is the end, and her relief when Sherlock intervenes is genuine. Thwarted on both counts, then; Irene is a broken tool, indeed. But she lives, and life takes her elsewhere, and she thinks of Moriarty only in her idler moments. She doesn’t wait, exactly, but she knows: any end is loose that isn’t still in play. And people like Moriarty always find uses for broken tools.

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for: not re-watching _Scandal_ before writing this (so I may very well have gotten things wrong, even in their vagueness), and making Irene cede to Moriarty, though I don't feel I've written her as weak for it, and hope you agree.


End file.
